Diabetes - A Disease You Can Fight

Diabetes has become one of the most wide-spread killers in the United States. The American Diabetic Association estimates that 23.6 million children and adults (or approximately 8% of the current U.S. population) has diabetes. And of that amount of people, approximately 25% are unaware they have the disease. Diabetes has been identified as one of the most common undiagnosed diseases.

How does this affect you? Well, it affects you in several ways.

First, if you currently are not diagnosed with diabetes, you may know of someone in your family who has the disease. It is also possible that you may be diagnosed with diabetes in the not too distant future. The number of diagnosed cases has increased about 14% since a study done in 2005-2007.

Second, the economic cost of someone diagnosed with diabetes is staggering. People diagnosed with this disease incur average medical expenses of over $11,700 dollars per year. This is approximately 2 ½ times higher than the medical expenses of someone without diabetes.

Third, your ethnicity may make you more susceptible to getting the disease. Diabetes is more common among African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian-American/Pacific Islanders. The National Diabetes Education Program, for instance, has stated that about 16.5% of the Native Americans seen by the Indian Health Service have been diagnosed to have diabetes.

Fourth, even if you do not fit into one of these ethnic groups, the older you get, the more likely you are to be diagnosed with diabetes. It has been said that 18% of those 60 and older have diabetes and an estimated 50% of all diabetes happens in those who are 55 and older.

However (and this is a big However), the news is not all bleak. There is good news. Recent studies have showed conclusively that individuals with pre-diabetes can make some simple changes in their lifestyle to prevent the development of type 2 diabetes. By making a few simple changes in your diet and increasing physical activity, you can knock out diabetes.

A Diabetes Prevention Program study showed that while some medicines delayed the development of diabetes, diet and exercise had a much more beneficial impact on diabetes. This study found that 30 minutes of moderate physical activity plus a 5 - 10% reduction in body weight produced a 58% reduction in diabetes. And when you factor in that it will cost you over $11,700 in medical expenses per year, getting up off the couch and losing some weight doesn't seem such a bad deal.

"Sure, physical activity probably would be good for me, but I don't want to spend all day at the gym."

It's really is not all that hard to get 30 minutes of moderate physical activity.

The Center for Disease Control states that moderate-intensity physical activity is an activity where a person would experience some increase in breathing or heart rate or any activity that burns 3.5 - 7 calories a minute.

Activities that fit this description would include walking briskly, playing golf while pulling a cart or carrying your clubs, recreational swimming, mowing your lawn with a power mower, playing doubles tennis or bicycling 5 - 9 mph on level terrain.

And you don't have to do these things 30 minutes straight. You can break up your daily physical activities into 3 sessions of 10 minutes each if that fits your lifestyle better.

Besides exercise and diet, another major factor in fighting diabetes is making your doctor a central part of your fight. Keep your doctor informed and make sure that you meet with your doctor on a regular basis.

Diabetes is a dreadful disease. It can sneak up on you without you even being aware of the damage it is doing to your body. But you can knock out diabetes. Exercise, diet, and conferring with your doctor are all methods for putting diabetes down for the count.

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The author, Merle Zunigha, has a personal interest in diabetes having watched his father fight the disease and as a result of his currently fighting diabetes himself. For more information on fighting this devastating disease go to http://adea-diabetes.com

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